We dress up when it’s appropriate and
dress down for work – kilts are not our standard day wear!

Brief review of year:

This letter is to tell you of
the highlights of this year - it's been a busy year in many
respects - perhaps one of the
busiest we’ve spent in some time! And there’s
actually lots more to tell than what's here - like the new workshop and little guest flat.These two will be up-and-running by the end
of January 2010, so visitors will be most welcome to come and try out the
flat.Should be a great asset to our
guest facilities – which we hope have not been bad in the past.But now - - - well come and sample what
we’ve got to offer now!!!!

This year we’ve had an amazing three
weddings in three weeks in September, an Iranian lady marrying a French Jew,
two lovely boys celebrating their Civil Partnership after twenty-five years of
togetherness and then, the most exotic of weddings in Kathmandu, with Nepalese Subi and nephew Tom.

In addition to everything else you'll see on this Christmas page, we are still keeping up with the
sponsorship of our Zambian students.
More new sponsors are required (we've lost some of the sponsors that were
helping us out and so Johnny and I haven't had the heart to drop them and so
have taken on the burden ourselves). So if you have a few pounds/dollars/euros/anything
at all!!! to spare to help it would be appreciated if you can manage.

Anyway, as you can see from this
letter we don’t do too badly for a couple of retired old farts!

Skiing trip to Newtonmore on
the Perth to Inverness highway

March, 2009

Johnny sometimes cannot get his head
around skiing straight off, but by the end of this day in Newtonmore in the
Highlands he was almost into it.Lovely
hills and lovely snow, it’s his skill and knees that let him down.

Have a look at:

Isle of Gigha and theMull of Kintyre, August 2009

Work,
work, work!The constant pressure got
us down and we just had to get away to the Mull of Kintyre (Grant’s ashes are
going to be scattered there but we were darned if we could find the right spot
– wothehell, it’s all lovely).We could
see over to Northern Ireland from the Mull and from Gigha – and right up to
Skye in the North.We hired cycles
(don’t you dare ask why we didn’t bring our own – and if you do, the answer is
the onset of dementia) and cycled around Gigha, did some great walks, and
enjoyed the excellent local food in the local hostellery.

Standing stones at Kilmartin, (an
alternative scattering of the ashes spot) and, from about 2000 years later,
some spectacular Medieval stone carvings in the graveyard there.It’s a place of remarkable history – my, the
Celts must have been really tough!

A day walk in the Pentland
Hills south of Edinburgh

, September 2009

Another day out to the hills but one
of the few days that we had as we seemed always to be too busy.The Pentland Hills are so close to Edinburgh, and easy to
get out to and back from by bus.We
could go every week but we don’t – we must get things into order next year and
get fit for the Nepal walk that never happened this year.

Allotments

Admire the greenhouse, square on its
foundation of cement poured by Grant, the master craftsman; the staging inside
the greenhouse on the right, and the lemon tree in the near corner of the
greenhouse.Also note the shed behind
the greenhouse (every man of a certain age needs one of these) (the latter also
with its cement foundations) and the straining wires for the cordon apple trees
back at the rear of the allotment – it all did remarkably well.Sorry we don’t have any photos of it in all
its verdant glory

The tulips are Mr Jap’s memorial
tulips and the best allotment produce photo we’ve got.Will do better next year.

The allotment produced a vast quantity
of food – always seemingly all at the same time.For a while we had difficulty giving it away.But it gave us both a great deal of pleasure.

Culra Bothy

Culra Bothy after the make-over (left)
and before the chimney repairs which were done only this month in the midst of
the coldest snap of the year.That’s
Ben Alder straight behind and Lancet edge to the right of the picture – what a
setting!Johnny having a happy moment
painting the small dormitory (right).

Johnny
and Grant are the Culra Bothy Maintenance Organisers.We’ve now done a lot of work on the bothy and organized a lot of
others to give us a hand.We’ve
re-painted it inside and out, installed gutters all around, and now, finally we
hope, got the roof and chimney waterproof.In addition we’ve carried out endless minor repairs, taken out loads of
rubbish left behind by thoughtless walkers (and boozers), brought in coal, wood
and food and generally made the place a lot more comfy and inviting. Have a look
at:

Visit to Canada for Grant’s
Mom’s Funeral, april/may 2009

Grant, Ian Burn and Johnny fixing the steps of
Ian’s jetty at Lake Wabamun (a big lake west of Alberta’s capital Edmonton)
that had been damaged by drifting pack-ice – Canada is a place for toughies.

What a great time we had with the Burns, and
with George Shipley and Veda helping out in good style.

Johnny on a snow slope at Barrier Mountain near
Bow Summit in Banff National Park (in May!).We also spent several lovely and enjoyable days with Joe and Inge Lang
in Jasper – where it didn’t look quite as wintry as this photo would lead you
to believe.

Grant’s Mom’s funeral was sad and the end of an
era for Grant, Sharon and Pat.Nevertheless we could, in the true Kanten spirit, have a traditional
‘pot luck’ party at The Old Farm.It
was great to see everyone again, and to mark the end of the era of Grant’s
parents with this occasion.

However, even when we left Canada on
6 May, there was still no sign of any green grass out on the prairies, and
there was still snow lying on the north sides of buildings and on the north
sides of shady trees!

We have to say that summer was
already in full swing when we got back to Edinburgh.

Trip to Delhi and Nepal for
Tom and Subi’s wedding

Trip to Delhi

,
24 - 25 September

The
Friday Mosque, near our hotel in Old DelhiThe chaos of the narrow streets in Old Delhi

The protected main gate of the Red FortInside one of the palaces in the Red Fort

Patan – across the river from
Kathmandu, Nepal, 25 Sept-3 Oct 2009

A view of the Himalayas from the rooftopA few of the many style of temples

restaurant of our hotel on Durbar Squareon Durbar Square which we overlooked

Delhi was wonderfully exciting and
interesting.But Nepal with Kathmandu
and Patan were definitely the most exotic places we’ve ever visited.We loved it!!

Patan Durbah Square World Heritage site, right
outside The Third World Guesthouse, where we stayed for the six nights of the
Tom and Subi celebrations.Just look at
the architecture in the photos above. Incidentally pagodas are a Nepali invention and
were exported to Japan and
China.Hindu, Buddhist and animist
beliefs are all represented here.

In the end we couldn’t work our whether these two
characters on the left were genuine – or just laid on for the tourists – or were there to take
advantage of the passing tourists!

Tom and Subi’s Wedding

Subi and Tom

The wedding was carried
out by Subi’s mother with instructions from two Brahman Hindu priests.What was particularly wonderful is that the
wedding took place in a Buddist templeIt was short for a Hindu wedding – only about an hour sitting on mats on
the temple floor.It included a lot of
wonderfully colourful ritual and symbolism.The mix of the georgeous silk saris, the kilts from the Scottish
contingent, and the Nepalese national dress couldn’t have been more exotic and
rich.

A few of the Shrestra Family – we now feel part
of it too (and hope that they feel the same way about us).

Colourful or what??

The restoration of the
Neapolitan harpsichord was finally finished

The Neapolitan Harpsichord in our
sitting room before taking it to Bergen op Zoom and in its rightful place in
the Period Room in the Markiezenhof Museum in Bergen op Zoom in the Southern
Netherlands.

The restoration of this fantastic
Neapolitan harpsichord should have been finished in April.But there were numerous pitfalls along the
way.The re-opening of the Markiezenhof
Museum was marked with the inauguration of the harpsichord in a grand concert
given by the world-famous Dutch harpsichordist Gustav Leonhardt (October 24,
2009).The harpsichord had numerous last-minute
problems and the final voicing and regulation had to be done after we arrived
with the instrument 2 days before the concert.

The instrument sounded wonderful and
confirmed Grant’s theories about the superior qualities of Neapolitan
harpsichords.They are surely the
Stradivarius of the Italian harpsichord world.And with Stefano Pessione’s painting of Andromeda and Perseus (and the
horrible sea monster!) on the lid, and his trompe l’ouille exterior decoration it looked
fantastic as well.